James Adams
James Adams (formerly James Choke) is the main character of the first CHERUB series. He appears in the second series after becoming a mission controller. Profile Academic James has an IQ of 153, and his prowess at maths is commonly noted, with him taking his A-levels in Maths and Further Maths a year early, and teaches Maths to younger members of CHERUB. He is fluent in Russian (but hasn't mastered the accent) and Spanish. He is also good at Physics, however, James is known for messing around in lessons when he should be paying attention. Despite this, he is still very intelligent and possesses considerable skills of deduction. Combat James is a very capable hand-to-hand combatant. Before he came to CHERUB, he was chubby and unskilled but he was said to have been in one or two fights in the school yard where he was abl to hold out well enough. When he came to CHERUB he was easily overpowered by younger agents. However, after a few years at the campus, he was able to handle himself well in a fight. By 'Brigands MC' James is an accomplished fighter, able to take down large men with ease. Physical James is described as being well built, with blue eyes, blond hair, 6 feet (1.8 m) tall when fully grown with a stocky build. He has been known to acquire weight easily, due to his tendency to not care about what he is eating, but he comes to care more about his appearance as he gets older. Likes ''' Having fun with girls, motorbikes, food. '''Dislikes Mayonnaise, swimming. 'Personality: '''James starts off as cocky, arrogant and spoilt. He deeply cares about his sister, to the point of staying at CHERUB so that she has a good life. He is shown countless times in the books to be hot-tempered and ferocious, but still remains selfless, brave and an unfailingly good person. He has questionable loyalty in his relationships as he is easily tempted by pretty girls, but cares deeply for Kerry Chang throughout all the books. He is intelligent, displaying considerable skills in language and mathematics. History Early Life James was born James Robert Choke in Tufnell Park, London on October 23, 1991. He lived with his half-sister Lauren and his mother, Gwen Choke, who ran the largest shoplifting empire in North London from an armchair in their living room. James didn't know who his father was, though it is revealed in a deleted passage from ''Divine Madness that he was a mathematics professor. When James was two years old, his mother gave birth to his half-sister Lauren Onions and married Lauren's father, Ronald 'Ron' Onions, who was verbally and physically abusive towards James. However, despite Ron not living with them, James despises him, particularly since he only visits when he wants money from Gwen. The Recruit: 2003-2004 When James was in his science class, he reacted violently to Samantha Jenning's mocking of his mum being fat, and accidentally scratched her face on an exposed nail. Fleeing home before he can be punished, James finds his mum drinking with Ron, in spite of her being told not to due to taking drugs following a surgery. Despite his attempts to explain what happened at school, Gwen sends James away to get Lauren from school and get them both dinner. However on their way back home, James was beaten up by Samantha's older brother Greg, with the promise of more beatings to follow. Upon returning home, he sees his mother, apparently asleep, and for a while does not realise that she has died until he tries to wake her up to tell her about the incident at school. James and Lauren were re-located to the Nebraska Children's Home, but because Ron didn't want him, only Lauren went home with Ron. While later collecting his things from his flat, James breaks into his mother's safe and takes her money so that Ron can't get ahold of it, and hides it in various places in his new room. James soon makes friends with his room-mate Kyle, but becomes annoyed when Kyle tricks him into wearing a tie from a girl's school. James then befriends Robert Vaughn, an older boy who leads a gang of teenage hoodlums. On his twelvefth birthday, James is told to steal beer for the gang, however they trick him and leave him to be arrested. Having already been cautioned for his attack on Samantha earlier that day, James is given a severe warning that if he doesn't get his act together, he'll likely end up in prison. The next day, James wakes up in a mysterious building and meets Doctor Terrence "Mac" McAfferty, the chairman of CHERUB, who offers James a place at CHERUB, in return for agreeing to become an agent for British Intelligence. James enters the recruitment tests, during which he meets agent Bruce Norris (who easily overpowers James in a sparring match), and refuses to do a swimming exercise. However James suceeds in passing and is allowed to become a CHERUB agent. He is first sent back to the Nebraska House to collect his things, and learns that Kyle is also a CHERUB agent working on a recruitment mission, and that the home's councellor, Jennifer Mitchum, recommended him to CHERUB. Before they head back to Campus, James and Kyle exact revenge of some of Robert's gang by pouring sand and coca cola in their room. Meeting his handler Meryl Spencer, James fronted up about his mother's money, which would be put into a trust fund for him, amd chose the name James Adams for his new name. Before he could enter the 100-Day Basic Training program, James had to learn to swim, and was given simming lessons by Amy Collins, though his slow progress forced Amy to have Paul and Arif make his lessons much scarier in order to make him fear them more than the water. James sneaked off-campus with Kyle and Bruce on a mission to London so that he could visit Lauren. After being caught out, James was reprimanded by Mac for going off-campus without permission, but was not punished. Upon entering basic training, James was partnered with Kerry Chang, who (having been through most of the course before but failed) offered to help him so long as he helped protect her injured knee. However on Christmas Day, James lost his temper with Kerry and stomped on her foot, resulting in a fight that Head Instructor Norman Large punished them by forcing them to spend the night outside in the cold. Despite Kerry's belief that they would get kicked off the course, forcing them to start again, James was determined to make it up to Kerry, and managed to get them though the night, allowing them to continue training. For the last few days of basic training, James and the other five trainees were taken to Malaysia for a survival course, which James and Kerry succeeded in before being awarded their Grey Shirts. Returning to CHERUB Campus, James learned that Lauren had been recruited into CHERUB after Ron had been arrested for smuggling. For the next few months, James adjusted to CHERUB lifestyle, hanging out with Kyle, Kerry, Bruce and others he had become friends with in basic training, Shakeel Dajani, Mo, Gabrielle O'Brien, and Callum and Connor Reilly, however no mission was offered to him. Amy revealed that she had asked that James not be offered any while he continued his swimming lessons, and that he was to accompany her on a mission in which he could easily play her little brother due to their similar appearances. James met mission controller Ewart Asker, who explained that the mission was to confirm connections between the eco-terrorist group Help Earth and some residents of hippy commune Fort Harmony. Under the name of Ross Leigh, James and Amy were sent to live with an informant resident, Cathy Dunn, to spy on Help Earth suspects Fire and World Dunn, Scargil Dunn, and Brian "Bungle" Evans. With an event named 'Petrocon' (the largest meeting of oil executives) occurring at nearby Green Brooke Conference Center, these three men were suspected of organising an attack against the meeting's attendees. While at Forst Harmony, James befriended brothers Clark and Sebastian Dunn, two boys who are frequently described as 'psycho', and developed a relationship with his first girlfriend, Joanna Ribble, despite the disapproval of her police officer father. Soon James uncovered a lab of Fire and World's, where it was thought that they were transporting pieces of a bomb into the conference centre on mini remote controlled cars. However Ewart saw from photos James took of the lab that it was actually an anthrax and James was rushed to hospital with the fear that he may have been contaminated. After undergoing treatments, it was revealed that the anthrax was a very weak strain (used to immunise Green Brooke staff), and that James was healthy. Fire, World, and Scargil are arrested, and James and Amy returned to Fort Harmony to see if they could uncover information about Bungle following his escape, however the Fort was evacuated by police. With the mission over, James returned to campus where his performace was seen by Mac as out-standing, resulting in James been awarded the Navy Shirt, though some of his friends thought it was only because he had been thought to have been infected with anthrax. Class A: 2004 James is on a training mission with Bruce Norris in which they have to recover hostages from a villa on a Mediterranean island. The two boys had to jog 10km to the villa where two eight year olds were being held. The agents are currently on summer break on the island of C–– and James has really let his fitness go so he is struggling with the jog. The two finally reach the house after being battered by thorned plants and stepp slopes in the off-road section in the last kilometre to the villa. James manages to survey the house and does not see any security cameras, hoever upon entering the perimeter through the fence, James slides through some dog poo, which alerts the boys to the fact that there is a dog in the area. While James is just about chewed down by a Rottweiler, Bruce anages to break into the house and open the patio door, saving James's neck. The two then search the house for the hostages, pocketing a set of car keys to use as their escape. On finding the hostages, they attempt to flee in the car, however the car fails to switch on. James and Bruce exit the car only to be shot twice in the chest and have trails of red running down their shirts. It turns out that Kerry and Gabrielle shot them with paintguns and switched the keys on the chain. The boys get a scolding from their training instructor Norman Large and ultimately fail the exercise - so he leaves them to get back to their hostel themselves by midnight (if they manage to he raises the grade). The boys begin to run all the way back to the hostel only to be further humiliated when Kerry tells them that there was money for a taxi on the bench. Later that evening Bruce and Kerry get into a fight as the girls were still laughing at the boys' stupidity. Bruce ends up severely injuring Kerry's knee and runs away to skulk under his duvet after Meryl Spencer charges into the room demanding to know what has happened. James, Bruce and Gabrielle are sent home early after this ordeal and Kerry is flown off the island and taken to hospital to have surgery on her knee. Kerry later apologises for her outburst and says that when she broke Bruce's leg he was cool about it so she is not trying to hold a grudge against him. (Maximum Security) (The Killing) 2006 (Divine Madness) (Man vs Beast) (The Fall) 2007 (Mad Dogs) (Dark Sun) (Brigands MC) James is sent to Salcombe in Devon in order to infiltrate the Brigands, run by 'The Fuhrer', a notorious criminal. 2009 (Shadow Wave) 2012 (Black Friday) 2014 (Lone Wolf) Personality He is blonde and (as he calls himself) a stud and as a result of this, gets off with lots of girls. James has always been into, since his Arizona Max mission, motorbikes and has a dream of buying a Harley and riding across America with his girlfriend Kerry Chang, this dream was most heavily mentioned in the book Brigands M.C. when he infiltrates the biker gang to uncover the weapons smuggling operations and the murder of fellow agent Dante Welsh's parents. When James first came to CHERUB he could not swim for all the money in the world. After some gentle lessons with Amy Collins, Mac decides that something more rigorous is needed so that James will pass the Basic Training, so he calls in two 17 year olds named Paul and Arif to take James to the Saltwater Diving Pool where they throw him in at the deep end and tell him to swim, eventually after 30 minutes of the bullying tactic, he can swim enough to be able to pass basic training, which he does and receives his grey shirt after going through basic training. Relationships He has had a number of girlfriends since joining CHERUB including Joanna Ribble (The Recruit), April Moore (Class A), Kerry Chang (Class A - The Killing, Divine Madness - The Fall, Brigands M.C- Black Friday), Rebecca "Becky" Little (Maximum Security), Hannah Clarke (The Killing), Dana Smith (end of The Fall - The General) and Ashley (Brigands M.C.). He had sex with Lois Thompson in her bathroom in Mad Dogs, Dana Smith (mentioned in The General), a Spanish stripper named Reina Cardinas he met at the Biker's Tea Party in Brigands M.C, Kerry Chang at the end of Shadow Wave, and Amy Collins at the beginning of Black Friday. Missions * Befriend Brian Evans, an environmental activist living in a Welsh commune, who has suspected links to ecoterrorism organisation Help Earth. This mission won James the navy shirt. (with Amy Collins) * Infiltrate Keith Moore's Gang (KMG), a Luton-based gang who is Europe's biggest cocaine distributor (with Kyle Blueman, Kerry Chang and Nicole) * Befriend an underage prisoner incarcerated in an American prison and bust him out to track down the prisoner's mother, an illegal arms dealer (with Dave and Lauren Adams) * Plant listening devices in the office of George Stein, a professor with suspected links to Help Earth (with Shak) * Befriend the family of Leon Tarasov, a shady businessman and small-time crook who has suddenly come into possession of several million dollars (with Dave) * Infiltrate Christian doomsday cult The Survivors in order to uncover links between the cult and Help Earth (with Lauren and Dana) * Infiltrate an radical animal rights organisation * Posing as the nephew of two MI5 agents trying to buy arms from a corrupt Russian businessman. This mission ended with the agents killed and James blamed, although he cleared his name after exposing the businessman who had paid the agents to kill the arms dealer and saving Ewart from an assassination attempt. This mission won James the black shirt. * Infiltrate Street Action Group, an anarchist organisation whose leader is trying to illegally purchase weaponry * Infiltrate the Devon chapter of Brigands MC, a biker gang dealing in illegal arms. * Act as mission controller to Andre Aramov in Ciudad Juarez, a town at the heat of the Mexico-US drug trade. Trivia *In the first two books James appears to be extremely ticklish and all Kerry, Amy or any other girl has to do to subdue him is get him on the ground and tickle him. Category:CHERUB Agents Category:Characters